When the Boat Starts Rockin’
by WildwingSuz
Summary: Serenity's none too stable thanks to them cows, and neither is Mal and Inara for that matter.


**Spoilers: ** None really. Takes place just after the end of _Shindig_, while the cows are still the cargo.

**Author's Notes: ** This story originally began as an amusing little tale about an odd problem on board Serenity, but the further I went with it the more I realized that it was going someplace else entirely. I know better than to argue with my muse and just went along for the ride; by the fourth page I knew the original story was nowhere to be found. Instead I tapped out this little vignette, my first Firefly fanfic but likely not my last…

Also, the original version had a lot more Chinese in it, but it was pointed out to me that it's much more difficult to read than listen to so I removed most of it despite feeling that it should remain for story's sake.

For my husband Joe, who gave valuable advice on the first draft.

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**When the Boat Starts Rockin'  
**By Suzanne L. Feld  
Rated PG-13 for adult themes and language

"Kaylee, _dammit!_"

The bellow rang through the corridors and rooms of the ship without any help from the overhead intercom. At the primary pilot's console Wash winced, but didn't turn around although he did set his dinosaurs up on the ledge in case the captain decided to come a-bitching at him. For some reason Mal got annoyed when he caught him with the autopilot on and toys spread out across the console; Zoë wasn't too crazy about it either but she was still sleeping.

"Coming, Captain! Everything's shiny!"

"Ah, the pitter-patter of little feet," Mal mumbled to himself as he stood, arms crossed and long legs spread, listening to Kaylee's hurrying footsteps coming closer. "Your hind end's gonna be shiny if you don't get those_ zhĭzé_ stabilizers adjusted!" he snapped as she came running into the dining area from the crew quarters corridor, jumping over the doorsill and ducking her head at the same time. "This goddamn boat's gonna make us all seasick like this!"

Serenity was slowly rocking back and forth from side to side, just barely enough to be felt but plenty to affect the inner ear in most of the crew. The first few rolls she'd done had been enough to throw people around; Mal had been in the commons with the Shepherd playing _xiàngqí_ and both of them had gone sprawling, not to mention the game pieces scattering all across the room. The present motion wasn't so bad that they couldn't walk, but it was damnunsettling nonetheless.

"Working on it, Captain, just had to take a break to use the sanitary," she said as she darted past him, tangled brown hair flying out behind her.

"Don't make excuses," he snapped, glaring at her khaki-clad back as she hopped over the far sill and headed away down the long corridor leading to the engine room. "Just get it fixed before we're swimming in puke!"

"Fuckin A right!" Jayne's angry growl rang out from the crew corridor. "I ain't never had no sea legs and I ain't about to grow 'em now! Shouldn't need 'em on a gorram–_hū'ér!"_

The ratcheting sounds of vomiting drifted into the commons. "Close your damndoor, Jayne!" Mal yelled, torn between following Kaylee or risking the smell in the opposite corridor. Instead he went into the galley and reached for the mug in his cubby, but then paused with it in his hand. A hot beverage probably wasn't a good idea with the way Serenity was swaying, but he recollected that he did have a half-bottle of decent _chíxùl_ in one of his dresser drawers. It was worth braving Jayne's vomit stink for.

Still, he held his breath as he hurried into the corridor and slapped the autoclose button on the panel when he went by to shut Jayne's door. There was no argument from within, which was a good thing in Mal's estimation.

As he was backing down the ladder into his room, doing his level best to ignore the faint rumble of uneasiness in his gut, he heard Inara's voice from the corridor coming closer. "What in the_ tángtū tiānaa_ is going on around here?"

Mal climbed back up and poked his head out, immediately realizing his mistake. Inara was wearing nothing more than a floor-length, silky robe belted tightly around her tiny waist and as she stalked by, it swirled around her bare legs showing all of her right up to where the robe was tied closed. Since he was looking up as she went past his bunk he got a birds'-eye view that made both his heart and _yīnjìng_ leap. "It's them damn cows," he snarled, ducking back into his room. "They almost had themselves a little stampede and done messed about with the stabilizers an' Kaylee ain't got 'em fixed yet."

"Gorram load of _lùh-suh _if you ask me," Jayne yelled across the corridor from his bunk; he must have opened his door again, Mal thought with irritation. "Tell that gorram girl to get it right or—"

"Well, isn't this one _dìyù_ of a way to be awakened," Inara snapped, talking over him and stopping at the base of the stairs that led into the bridge with one hand on the railing. "I may take my shuttle out for a while to get away from this swaying, it's—"

All voices fell silent as the rocking suddenly stopped. Then Serenity tilted slowly but clearly to port… and again to starboard, and held there for long moments. Mal clung to the ladder, hoping the grav wouldn't go out along with the stabilizers; they usually went hand-in-hand.

"_Goh-se!_ Mal, Wash, somebody, help!"

At the sound of Inara's breathless voice Mal darted up the ladder, not caring that the ship was listing at a thirty-degree angle. He stumbled out into the corridor half-bent-over and saw Inara right away; she had grabbed onto the railing leading up to the bridge but had gotten flipped around it and was wedged between the metal pole and the wall, her legs twisted to one side. Her _bare_ legs. The silky robe had ridden up to her waist, leaving her bare from there on down, although her legs were up and twisted to the side so that he only saw the side of her smooth, flawless hip that segued into her softly indented waist, and pale upper thighs… although he could certainly imagine… _don't _go_ there, Malcolm! _ He snapped at himself mentally.

"Dammit, Mal, don't just stand there and _dĭngdăng_ stare at me, this hurts!" she snapped up at him.

"God, gimme a minute!" he snapped right back, half-stumbling his way over to her even as Serenity evened out then stopped perfectly level.

"I got it, Captain!" Kaylee's happy voice rang out faintly.

"Not goddamn soon enough," he mumbled, reaching the steps and Inara. She put one slender arm up and out to him, the voluptuous sleeve of her flowered robe falling back to show her all the way down to her cleanly shaven armpit and the rounded side of her breast. It was with some trepidation that he took her hand, curling his other hand around her shoulder on the other side, and lifted her steadily as she extracted herself limb-by-limb from the tiny space she'd gotten wedged into. He looked away as much as he could but kept one eye nearby in case she needed further help. Inara gathered her robe around her as he helped her sit on the stairs, then he felt her trembling and sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her quaking shoulders unthinkingly. "You all right?"

"Yeah, just a little shook up," she admitted, glancing up at him with her huge dark eyes from beneath the tangled mass of her wavy jet hair. Though her long lashes were perfect as always, she wasn't wearing eyeliner and there were smudges at the outer corners. Her full lips, while lacking any type of paint or coloring, were pillow-soft-looking, smooth, and oh-so-inviting. _ Jesus, even just out of bed she's stunning, how in_ _heaven's name does she do that? _ He wondered even as he held her gaze, unable to help himself from leaning down to—

"You okay, Inara?"

Wash's voice from above them caused Mal to jerk away and stumble to his feet, shoving his hands in his front pockets. "She's fine, just got herselfwedged in between the railing and wall," he said harshly, turning away. "Aren't you supposed to be driving this boat instead of snooping on other people?"

The pilot was suppressing a grin as he turned back to the bridge. "Aye aye Captain!" he bellowed sarcastically. _Tiāntáng de dĭngdăng, _he'd have won the shipwide bet if he'd been just a few seconds slower!

"Thank you, Mal," Inara said softly from behind him, and then he heard her hissed intake of breath and turned back, concerned. She was standing and holding onto the railing, one bare foot in the air, biting her full lower lip. She looked up at him frowning, and said, "I think I hurt my foot, bruised or strained it by the way it feels."

Mentally rolling his eyes, Mel moved back to her side. "Let's get you down to the infirmary and have the doc look at you," he said, then reached down and scooped her up in his arms.

"Mal! _Shénshèng de lājī! _ Put me down!"

He grinned lazily down into her wide-eyed face as she huffed and spat at him, adjusting her robe to cover as much of herself as she could reach, but she did loop one slender arm around his neck. "This is a lot easier than having you limping your way through the ship," he pointed out. As he stepped into the dining room he saw that the young doctor and hissister were sitting at the table having breakfast, both staring at them.

"Inara done hurt herself when Serenity shifted that last time," Mal informed Simon as he marched past. "Need you to earn your_ dĭngdăng_ keep and do some doctorin'."

"Er, yeah, sure," he said, and then pushed a mug over at River. "You stay here and drink this, ok, _mèi-mei_?"

"Feet don't mean you can't walk," the slight girl said, peering at them from between long curls of dark hair that straggled over her round face as Mal and Inara passed by. "In arms is where you wish to be anyway."

Mal didn't dare look at Inara or he knew he'd burst into laughter; was it good or bad when he could sometimes kinda understand that crazy-talkin' girl? Instead he concentrated on following the doctor to the infirmary and gently set Inara on the exam table in the middle of the room. Was it his imagination or did his arms ache with emptiness when she was gone from them? He couldn't deny he missed the sweet flowery smell of her hair and the feel of her…_ stop it, you idiot!_

He stepped back and leaned his hip against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. Mal watched as Simon examined Inara's slender foot, nudging the robe aside when it fell over her ankle. The Companion, blushing lightly, pushed the material between her pressed-together knees and trapped it there so it wouldn't swing fully open. "I bet you won't come running out here without at least _duăn chènkù _on from now on," Mel said unthinkingly.

Both Simon and Inara turned to him, the former with a frown and the latter with a cold, angry stare. "Whether or not I am wearing underwear is of no concern to you, Captain," she said coldly.

"It is when you're flashin' everybody on my gorram ship," he said bluntly.

"I all but got tossed out of my bed when the ship started rocking," Inara informed him frostily, tossing a thick sheaf of dark, wavy hair over her shoulder as the doctor went back to prodding her foot. "If you _must_ know, silk sheets are quite slippery."

Mal felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth and could only stare at her wordlessly. She gave him a smug look with a close-mouthed smile and turned back to Simon, saying, "It isn't broken, is it?"

"No, nor sprained. It looks like just a bad bruise; a cold compress and staying off of it for the rest of the day should take care of it," he said, turning and going to a drawer near Mal. He turned back with a rectangular blue bag in his hands, giving it to her. "This should work; if it's not better in the morning I'll run some imaging scans."

"Thank you, doctor," Inara said, turning fluidly to sit on the edge of the table with the cold compress bag in one hand and her back to Mal. "Simon, would you help—"

Mal strode around the table, brushed past the shorter man and scooped her up into his arms again.

"_Zhĭzé nĭmen shăzi!_" Inara snapped, hitting him on one shoulder with her free hand. "Would you put me down? I can walk just fine on my own; you are _not_ carrying me anywhere else!"

"Too late!" Mel snarled right back into her face. "You don't want me to carry ya, wear some more clothes and don't go tripping over your own _zhĭzé_ feet!"

As he left the infirmary and moved towards the stairs he noted that the game pieces had all been picked up and both the board and Shepherd were gone. This was good, he thought, the less people who saw him carrying Inara to her shuttle the better! But the thought didn't stop him nor make him look any closer at just exactly what he was doing.

Neither spoke as he climbed to the shuttle level, Inara with one arm around his neck and the other holding her robe closed near her knees, her face turned away from his. But just as they reached the top level Serenity shifted again, tilting briefly but sharply to port before straightening out. Mal had not been holding onto the railing, both arms full of the Companion, and it caught him completely by surprise. But as he began to fall forward he realized that he would land smack-dab on her and managed to twist himself around so that when they hit the metal grating, she was mostly on top of him.

From below came the sound of the cattle lowing and Kaylee's voice shouting reassurances, but Mal could only lie there and look up into the stunningly beautiful face of the woman resting partly atop him. Her lower half was not on him—luckily enough, he mused abstractedly, or she'd know exactly what he was thinking about—but her forearms and breasts were pressed to his chest, her face only inches away, her warm breath brushing his lips. Her wide dark eyes gazed down into his, startled, and they stared at each other for a few beats even as he felt a jolt in his belly. It was all he could do to not crush her against him, drag that lush rosebud mouth to his and show her how a _real_ man kissed—but knowing who and what she was held him back. There was no way he could take this next step with her being a registered Companion, sure that she would continue to service clients. He had no reason to believe she'd give all that up for him and his motley crew and piece of _goh-se_ spaceship.

"So, is this one of the ways that whores—I mean, Companions—get their clients?" he said in a conversational voice, squeezing her tiny, silk-covered waist with both hands.

"You_ jăn-doh dùh ée-kwài-ro!_" Inara snapped, her face coloring, as she pushed away with both hands and scrambled to her feet, holding onto the railing with one hand while she pulled her flowered silk robe together with the other. "Go to hell, Malcolm Reynolds! Even if you ever had enough money to afford a Companion I _highly_ doubt you could ever even attract one!"

She limped away to her shuttle, openly bristling and decidedly angry. Mal watched her go with some amusement from his seat on the catwalk, amusement that was warring with his own disappointment and disquiet. Had she just not been a Companion… but she was, and not for him no matter how he couldn't help but feel about her.

As he got to his feet he spotted the blue cold-pack nearby; she must have dropped it when they'd fallen. He leaned over and picked it up, then went and set it outside the door to her shuttle as he knew it probably wasn't a good idea for them to see each other for a while.

But, since he could—and planned to the first chance he got—he was looking forward to imagining what might have happened had he carried her off to his bunk instead of to the infirmary…

_finis_


End file.
